HRT was put up for sale by its owners, and there were several prospective buyers. A buyer was not found before the 30 November deadline, and the team were not included in the 2013 entry list, and were soon liquidated.

Michael Schumacher announced his retirement from the sport last year and his place in Mercedes was taken by Lewis Hamilton.

McLaren Signed up Sergio Perez as Hamilton's replacement after a successful second year at Sauber.

Sauber has a new lineup this year with Nico Hulkenberg joining the team after a year in Force India and will Partner test driver Esteban Gutierrez who finished 3rd in the GP3 series. as a result Kamui Kobayashi was left without a drive and elected on getting a seat for 2014 instead.

After a year absence Adrain Sutil returns to the sport at Force India, the team he drove before being replaced.

Williams signed up test driver Valtteri Bottas after a series of Friday morning practices in 2012. After the deal was made Bruno Senna left the team.

Charles Pic joined Caterham after signing a two year deal and will be teaming up with their test driver Giedo van der Garde. As a result Heikki Kovalainen & Vitaly Petrov were left without a driver, however Kovalainen stayed as test driver will Petrov left the sport.

Marussia signed up Max Chilton to the team and was originally to drive alongside Timo Glock, but Glock quitted the team before testing and signup Luiz Razia but he had his contract terminated just after 3 weeks because of lack of sponsorship and was replaced by Jules Bianchi.

With HRT closing down Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan were left without a drive. de la Rosa later became Ferrari's test driver will Karthikeyan contested in the endurance series.

The inaugural Grand Prix of America was originally scheduled to take place on June 16th, but was cancelled due to the organisers being unable to acquire the required permits and license in time. The event was then set to début in 2014 but did not appear on that calendar either.

A race in Europe was intended take place on July 21st. This resulted in a change from the provisional calendar, as it has forced the German Grand Prix to take place a week earlier than initially planned. A Grand Prix or circuit was not found, and the proposal was put down.

The primary choice appeared to be a return of the Turkish Grand Prix (which last took place in 2011). The circuit, Istanbul Park, has gone under a change of ownership, however, the Turkish Government was not willing to supply additional funds, and cannot host the race.

The Red Bull Ring, which would host the Austrian Grand Prix, was in a strong position in to host the extra race. Despite the event not going ahead, the Austrian circuit did make the 2014 calendar.

After the "launch season", in which all but Williams launched their 2013 cars, testing began at the Circuito de Jerez in Jerez de la Frontera. All eleven teams attended. McLaren showed off the pace of their car on the first day, Jenson Button achieving a very strong time on the first day on hard tyres. Felipe Massa set the fastest time of the test on a six-lap run on soft tyres on the third day.

Williams finally launched their car; and Fernando Alonso returned to drive the Ferrari after missing out on the first test. The first three days went without too much issues, with a large number of laps being driven, with Sergio Pérez posting the fastest lap of the test on the second day. After the third day ended, it rained over the track, and it rained on and off throughout the fourth and final day. This allowed teams some wet-weather running (and pit stop practice), but also resulted in eight red flags in one day.

The test did not initially run as planned, with the first two days being rainy and thus, times were going to tell even less of a story than usual. Mark Webber managed to achieve the best time on the first day, beating Lewis Hamilton by over 1.5 seconds. The second day, though less wet, still mixed the field. Romain Grosjean, who had set the slowest time on the first day, posted the fastest time, while the final two positions were occupied by Nico Rosberg and Fernando Alonso. Midway through the test, Marussia replaced Luiz Razia (who had replaced Timo Glock, who was contracted to drive in 2013) with Jules Bianchi due to sponsorship payment issues. Bianchi got to drive on the third day, as did Grosjean and Davide Valsecchi for Lotus, after Kimi Räikkönen, who was meant to drive on the day, was ill. On the dry track, Hamilton set a very fast time to top the timesheets, with Felipe Massa over six tenths of a second down. On a dry final day of testing, Hamilton's Mercedes teammate Rosberg set the fastest time of test to beat Alonso by three tenths. Alonso was nearly a second quicker than Jenson Button, the third fastest driver.

"It's the start of a new season and the beginning of a new adventure for me with Mercedes AMG Petronas. I can't wait to get to Melbourne, get out on track and find out where we stand. The Australian Grand Prix is always an exciting race: the teams don't know how they compare in terms of performance, the fans are fantastic and, with big changes to the tyres again this year, we just don't know what will happen in the race. I love the circuit. It's a street track with a really bumpy surface so you try and put as much downforce on the car as possible and it really puts the drivers to the test. We had a good, reliable car during winter testing so that's the positive we can take with us into the weekend but we know that in terms of performance, everything begins again from zero in Friday practice. So let's get Down Under, get racing and see how things turn out."

The season started poorly, with a disrupted qualifying. Whilst Q1 was completed, the wet conditions have forced the postponement of the rest of qualifying to Sunday morning before the actual race. When qualifying actually took place, Sebastian Vettel took pole position as the track dried up, with Red Bull teammate Mark Webber alongside. The race was a different matter. Though intermittant with very light rain, Vettel appeared to not have the race pace that was implied in qualifying. Ferrari looked strongest, with Felipe Massa challenging Vettel initially before Fernando Alonso performed the undercut on the pair of the them. With Adrian Sutil's strategy giving him the lead, it looked as if he could pull off the surprise result of the day for Force India. While Sutil's drive only produced a seventh-place finish, the real surprise was that Kimi Räikkönen, from seventh on the grid, managed to win the race by 12 seconds ahead of Alonso, after effectively pulling off two-stop strategy, while most drivers had to pit three times.

In the race, Vettel made a good getaway to maintain his lead. In Turn 2, Alonso, who had made a good start himself, drove into the back of Vettel and dislodged his front wing a bit. The wing held on for the rest of the lap as the Spaniard valiantly held off the fast-starting Mark Webber before it fell off at the end of the home straight. Alonso was beached in the gravel and forced to retire. After the first round of pitstops to replace the intermediate tyres, Webber took the lead, with Vettel second, Lewis Hamilton third and Rosberg fourth. Hamilton may have been higher up, but by accident had attempted to pit at McLaren's pit box and lost about five seconds. After Webber's final stop, the two Red Bulls were close enough to fight for position. Red Bull planned to conserve both fuel and tyres to the finish line, with no overtaking between the teammates, but Vettel disobeyed the team orders and overtook Webber anyway. Hamilton and Rosberg were engaged in their own battle, and three times Roberg and Hamilton exchanged places in the two DRS zones before Rosberg was told to hold position, which he did.

With the race predicted to be dominated by tyre wear, Championship leader Sebastian Vettel did not compete strongly in qualifying, not running in third qualifying. This left the fight for pole position open, and Lewis Hamilton took his first pole as a Mercedes driver ahead of Kimi Räikkönen. Mark Webber did not finish qualifying with enough fuel, and was sent to the back of the grid.

Hamilton made a strong start to lead, followed by both Ferraris, with Fernando Alonso ahead of Felipe Massa. With the soft tyres barely lasting five laps (Webber pitting on the first lap), Hamilton could not eke out a lead and was caught by both Ferraris as his tyres degraded. Five laps in, Esteban Gutiérrez misjudged his braking point and rammed into the back of Adrian Sutil. Gutiérrez nearly lost a wheel and Sutil's rear wing was dislodged; both retired. Soon, all the front-runners pitted and the fast-starting Nico Hülkenberg led the race, ahead of Vettel and Jenson Button, the three drivers having started the race on the harder compound.

A quarter of the way into the race, Webber attempted to overtake Jean-Éric Vergne and crashed into the Frenchman, not causing either to crash, but Webber needed to pit. At the pitstop, the right rear wheel was not put on properly and at Turn 14 (the hairpin at the end of the long straight) it fell off and Webber was forced to retire. Around the same time, Räikkönen was caught out by Sergio Pérez's defense of his position and he damaged his front wing and nosecone. Nico Rosberg became the final retirement of the day, before half distance, with suspension issues.

Alonso was left clear in the lead after the second set of pitstops, followed by Räikkönen and Hamilton. Vettel overtook Button after Button's strategy of one less pitstop left the Briton leading for a short time, though the McLaren's lack of speed meant he fell down the order. Hamilton, while sticking close to Räikkönen, was unable to overtake him. Vettel, who also led the race for a short time, pitted with five laps to go, as did Button. While Button's pit stop pushed him slightly behind Massa, who was quickly overtaken; Vettel's stop left him with twelve seconds of clear track. With Räikkönen and Hamilton on old, slow tyres and Vettel on new quick tyres, the gap was nullified and by the DRS detection point on the final lap, Vettel was close enough to challenge. However, while lapping Giedo van der Garde, Vettel went off line and lost both time and speed to Hamilton, and was unable to challenge as he would have wanted. Alonso crossed the line while this was happening ten seconds clear of his Finnish rival; and Vettel crossed the line two tenths after Hamilton.

Nico Rosberg took pole position with a time a quarter of a second quicker than championship leader Sebastian Vettel's best time. The Mercedes driver had looked quick all weekend, setting competitive times in the first and third practice sessions and featuring in the top-3 throughout qualifying. There were, however, serious concerns over the Mercedes' tyre-wear rates.

On race day, the top-5 grid slots were filled by four different constructors, with only Ferrari featuring twice.

At the race start, the top three all got away well, with Rosberg maintaining his lead off the line. Meanwhile, Alonso briefly got ahead of Vettel, only for the Red Bull driver to regain second a few turns later. Other drivers who started well include Paul di Resta and Jenson Button, who gained three places early on.

A few laps in, Vettel managed to pull off a pass on Rosberg for the lead after two laps of defensive driving by Rosberg. On finding himself in open space, Vettel managed to pull out a large lead in no time and disappear off into the distance. A couple of laps later, Alonso attempted a similar move on Rosberg in the DRS zone, only to be thwarted by a rear wing failure when his wing flap became jammed open. An untimely trip to the pits fixed the issue temporarily, but the lost time, and inability to use the DRS for the rest of the race had ruined Alonso's chances of a podium finish.

As Vettel cruised off into the sunset unchallenged, the two McLaren drivers were having a much feistier time of things. Sergio Pérez' displeasure at being behind his teammate came to a head when, on lap 31, the pair collided. Button's car was undamaged, while Perez was left with a damaged front wing. As the race came towards its conclusion, Vettel held a comfortable lead from Räikkönen, who had made a silent but confident drive through the field from his 8th placed grid slot. Paul di Resta was racing well in 3rd place. The Scot was to lose this place to Romain Grosjean in the closing stages.

Across the line, Vettel led Räikkönen by 9 seconds, with Grosjean a further 10 seconds behind. Di Resta finished a career-best equalling 4th. Polesitter Rosberg slipped backwards through the field to finish 9th, four places behind his teammate. This was the first time two Lotus drivers had made the podium since last year's Hungarian Grand Prix.

Once again, Nico Rosberg took home pole position for the third time in a row after taking it by 9 tenths of a second from Lewis Hamilton to make a 1-2 for Mercedes. Nico Rosberg had been very quick in the practice by collecting the fastest time on all of the practice sessions.

"I got a bad start and that’s something we must look at carefully, as it compromised our performance. But it would not have made a big difference today, because of the problem I had when my tyre failed. I don’t know what happened, I did not feel any warning signs and it just let go under braking. I did manage to come back to the pits, fit new tyres and go out again, but the team immediately told me I had quite significant damage to the car, which in any case I could feel. The car was very difficult to drive from then on and in the end, the team took the decision to retire me, as there was no sense in carrying on. I did not feel in danger, but it’s just a shame that this sort of problem can waste a whole weekend’s work for the team. I am very upset about it and something needs to be done about it soon. So, from a results point of view, this is a race to forget, but I believe we showed the car was very quick and we can be in the fight in the coming races."

On lap eight, Hamilton suffers a left-rear tyre blowout, giving Vettel the lead and dropping the Brit far down the order. This was soon followed by Felipe Massa, who spun off. Both of these happened after Turn 4. Then, going down the Hangar Straight chased by both Lotuses, Jean-Éric Vergne's left-rear tyre suffers a major blowout, bringing out the safety car.

Eventually, racing began once again. Most notably, Hamilton and Paul di Resta had a good fight for 11th, Esteban Gutiérrez suffered a left-front tyre failure and Vergne retired with a damaged floor, from the initial puncture, after 35 laps. With 12 laps to go, Vettel surprisingly lost drive with a gearbox failure, which left Rosberg in the lead, with Kimi Räikkönen looking good for second place after not pitting in the safety car period which followed Vettel's failure.

Once the safety car went in, a frantic drive to the finish line ensued. Webber got past Räikkönen, as did Alonso and eventually Hamilton, also recovering strongly after his puncture. Sergio Pérez had a left-rear puncture with six laps to go while being overtaken by Alonso, the second of his weekend. Rosberg went on to victory by less than a second over Webber, with Alonso completing the podium. Hamilton and Räikkönen were not too far behind Alonso. Massa also recovered well to finish sixth, forcing Sutil, after an excellent race, to finish seventh. Daniel Ricciardo, after his strong race, finished eighth, followed by Paul di Resta, from the back row, and Nico Hülkenberg.

The tyre blowouts have been attributed to poorly-designed kerbs at Turn 4, which caused cuts in the left-hand as the drivers tried to take the best line through the corner.

Lewis Hamilton took pole position ahead of Sebastian Vettel. At the start of the race, Vettel made a better start than Hamilton to take the lead. Mark Webber also made a great start to deprive Hamilton of second place. Vettel was unable to break away into his trademark 2.5 second lead as Webber stayed on his tail. Fourth was Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean was in fifth place.

On lap three, Felipe Massa, who was in sixth place, spun leftward at the right-hand first corner, after which the anti-stall failed to kick in, forcing the Brazilian out of the race.

In the first round of pitstops, two incidents occurred. Firstly, Force India released Adrian Sutil into the path of Jean-Éric Vergne, who was forced to slam onto the brakes to avoid a pit lane collision. Secondly, Webber's right-rear tyre was not put on properly he exited his pit box. In driving away, the tyre became loose and bounced down the pitlane at high speed into a camaraman. Webber's race severely compromised from that point onwards.

Grosjean was left in the lead after everyone pitted; he managed to complete 14 laps on a used set of soft tyres. He managed to leapfrog Hamilton and Räikkönen, who were being held up behind Hamilton's teammate Nico Rosberg; eventually both drivers got past the German, and Räikkönen then passed Hamilton for fourth on track (Jenson Button had not yet pitted). All this time Fernando Alonso was catching up to the lead pack after a poor stint on the soft tyres.

On lap 23, Jules Bianchi's engine blew in spectacular fashion, creating a lot of smoke and even catching fire for a good few seconds. Somewhat amusingly but dangerously, the car starting moving backwards downhill across the track, before stopping after knocking down an advertising hoarding. The next cars to pass the section of track where the race leaders. This event brought out the safety car.

At the restart, Vettel lead away ahead of Grosjean and Räikkönen, from whom he couldn't pull out a gap. On lap 41, Grosjean pitted for a final time, attempting to perform the undercut on Vettel; but unfortunately, with Vettel pitting the next lap, Grosjean could not close the gap.

Räikkönen bode his time and waited until lap 50 before taking his final stop, which allowed the Finn to take on the soft tyres, unlike Vettel and Grosjean; Alonso, in fourth place, did likewise. Räikkönen emerged behind his Lotus teammate and chased down the leading pair; Alonso chased down all three. Räikkönen managed to get past his teammate and looked like he could have overtaken Vettel, but the German held on to win his first German Grand Prix. Räikkönen followed him home, one second down; Grosjean completed the podium and Alonso finished fourth. Hamilton overtook Button for fifth on the final lap. Webber, having spent ten laps behind Esteban Gutiérrez, recovered well to finish seventh, closely followed by Sergio Pérez. Rosberg and Nico Hülkenberg, who ran a strong race, completed the point-scoring positions.

The table displays drivers who had driven modern Formula One machinery for their respective teams, through methods such as race simulators, on-track tests and demonstration runs between the beginning of the 2013 pre-season, beginning on the 26th November 2012 and concluding on the 24th November 2013.